Karzai Takes Aim at NATO
This morning, Afghan President Hamid Karzai took a shot at NATO efforts to prevent civilian casualties. This of course comes directly in the middle of the largest military offensive against the Taliban since 2001. During his speech at the opening of the Afghan parliament, a body that would not exist without NATO and a body which NATO soldiers are currently fighting and dying to preserve, Karzai held up a picture of an 8 year-old girl that he said was the only individual left to recover the bodies of her 12 relatives, who were killed after two NATO rockets tragically missed their target and struck the civilian residence.
While the death of civilians in combat is an unspeakable tragedy, Mr. Karzai is out of line to be posing for photo ops and ripping into the American-led NATO forces for this tragic misstep given the extensive lengths NATO troops go trying to prevent these sorts of tragedies. Mr. Karzai is quite aware that General Stanley McChrystal is taking extraordinary steps to win over the civilians and he also knows that towards this end, McChrystal is taking unprecedented steps to avoid the civilian casualties that unfortunately accompany bloody warfare. On Thursday, intelligence analyst Lara M. Dadkhah wrote an op-ed piece published in the New York Times (not exactly a right-wing newspaper) detailing how America's fear of civilian casualties has drastically reduced the role of American air power in providing vital covering fire for ground troops. Trying to minimize the number of Afghan civilian casualties means that more NATO troops will die fighting to protect and stabilize Mr. Karzai's country and the government he leads.
Of course, it must be conceded that Karzai did thank McChrystal for “standing with” the Afghans “honestly” in the effort to limit casualties. I can't speak for the general, but I suspect that he would appreciate it if Mr. Karzai thanked him in private and -- given the steps NATO is taking to avoid civilian casualties -- refrained from further highlighting the few missteps that will inevitably be made. Beyond being patently insulting, Karzai's stirring up of public sentiment for purely political purposes makes it more difficult for NATO to complete one of the central goals of the offensive: winning the support of the Afghan public.